I See You've Called in Dead

by John Kenney

“There are these nuns,” Howard said. “We ran this story a while back. They practice something called memento mori. Latin for remember that you die. They sit and pray, meditating on this notion, that in every action we should remember, have to remember, that we die. When they were asked if it was depressing, they said no, quite the opposite. They said it makes life so … almost impossibly beautiful.”

Are we ever fully honest with someone else? I don’t mean to suggest outright lies, but do we really express those quieter, deeper feelings? Those amorphous, hazy things, core things that even we struggle to admit to ourselves. Do we share everything?

‘We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere. To practice death is to practice freedom.’”

“The woman from Judy’s wake, who said to come to funerals.” “I want you to play that sentence back in your head.”

“It is. Was electricity new when you were little?” “No. How old do you think I am?” “Are you dead? My mother said you were dead.” “I was. I’m better now.”

The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark.”